


A Passing Grade

by stmangos



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang Toph and Suki Hakoda Gran-Gran and Iroh are mentioned/show up but don’t play huge roles, Alternate Universe - College/University, Happy Ending, Happy Pride Month you guys!!, Internalized Transphobia, Lesbian Katara (Avatar), M/M, Queer Themes, Rated for swearing, Trans Sokka (Avatar), Trans Zuko (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-24 12:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14954703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stmangos/pseuds/stmangos
Summary: The first year of college is often rough. And that’s without factoring in the politics, the coming to terms with yourself, and, most of all, the attraction to your roommate…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Additional heads ups include brief mentions of violence, misgendering, deadnaming, and brief underage drinking if you’re in the U.S. The majority of the misgendering and deadnaming is plot-related and stops after Chapter 1.

When Sokka nears the room, the first thing he sees through the open doorway is his roommate-- big facial scar, unflattering ponytail-- grimly unpacking as if preparing for battle. He watches for a second, unnoticed, as she slots a trio of books into place on the bookshelf-- _The Archaeology of Weapons, Art of the Samurai, The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England--_ and makes a mental note that she, too, appreciates long, sharp, shiny, pointy things. She must have checked in and gotten all her bags up here in the time he was out. He jingles the keys and clears his throat a little as he steps inside. His roommate looks up. 

“Hey,” he says, sticking out his hand. “You must be Li. I’m Sokka.”

His roommate’s jaw clenches, her eyes fixed on him warily, and Sokka briefly wonders whether he’s said something wrong.

“Yes,” she says brusquely, and shakes his hand, firmly. “Hi.”

“I know you’re unpacking, but one of the Welcome Week activities is just about to start,” says Sokka, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Do you want to come? We can talk on the way. No pressure.”

Li looks down at the open suitcase for a moment, frowning, but easily acquiesces, stooping to dig out a large floppy hat. It has a neck flap for god’s sake.

“What’s with the hat?” says Sokka in amusement. It’s dorky, but in a cute way.

“You don’t fuck with the sun around here,” Li says completely seriously. 

Nothing says escape from the K-through-twelve system like sitting criss-cross applesauce with a group of your peers on a hot, grassy field while you basically have Field Day. Granted, there’s more swearing than he remembers from elementary school. 

He’s starting to think that maybe Li was right about the sun. He pulls his shirt away from his body, flapping it to try to get some air, and sideyes Li, who looks completely comfortable in a sweatshirt. “How are you wearing that?”

Li looks at him, frowning a little. “It’s not that hot.”

Sokka gapes. “Not-- not that hot? It’s like-- nearly eighty degrees! It feels like we’re being baked alive! And where’s the humidity?”

“There isn’t really any humidity here,” says Li, unfazed, scratching behind her ear. “I’m just used to it, I guess.”

“Does your family live around here?”

Li hesitates. “Yes.”

Li’s family has just moved back from an island, where there’s great fish and too many feral chickens. Li’s planning on double majoring in Political Science and International Studies. Li listens to Sokka ramble about his hometown absolutely seriously, and at the end of it and his admission that he might possibly maybe miss it a little, awkwardly but sincerely tells him that that’s rough. 

When they return to the dorm room, Li gets right back to taking everything out and putting it away-- kind of haphazardly, he notices, but whatever works for Li-- but Sokka just sinks down on his bed, glad to be back in the shade. He’s not bothering to fully unpack. He saves more space that way, he reasons to himself, it being a tiny room after all. 

And when he _had_ unpacked, he had done it in as blasé a manner as possible, because the door was open and his suitemates were popping in and out to introduce themselves, and real men don’t feel homesick when they go off to college for the first time, they feel excited, and they certainly don’t feel the need to just sit down on their bare, extra long dorm mattress and cry like it’s the first day of kindergarten. It doesn’t matter if anyone _knows_ that he’s a man. If he can’t convince himself, he won’t convince anyone else either. Him, insecure? No way.

But there were some items for which he just couldn’t fake nonchalance-- thick winter clothes he’s quickly realizing he probably won’t need but which _will_ make him homesick, most of the girlier clothing that he took because what the hell else would he have done with it?-- So he just left these things in the suitcase and shoved the suitcase under the bottom bunk.

Well, look. It could be worse. He could have gone to an all women’s college. 

But he’s still in an all-women dorm, and this whole thing is wrong, wrong, wrong.

He’s not sure if it’s just first-time-at-college jitters, but Li seems to be feeling that something’s wrong with her station in life at the moment too. Li is a little standoffish, though she answers whatever he asks, and closes doors too loudly, and seems vaguely grumpy about something.

Still, though, he gets an awkward wish good night that day, and he likes Li, he really does. 

 

Every day passes in such a haze of bitter inadequacy that it’s like wading through an ocean of molasses with no land in sight. There’s a fog over his head, and the more time passes, the more he becomes sure that it was always there-- it’s just that the fog had never been lifted, and so he thought it was normal. Now that he’s aware of it, it certainly doesn’t exactly make navigating life any easier. 

He slips out at night sometimes-- come to think of it, Li does this a lot too; Sokka has no idea where to-- to take walks and look at the stars. Once he gets out to the edges of campus, the areas with fewer lights, he’s able to see a little better. 

He sits down on a low wall near some of the apartments with a sigh, tipping his head back to look up. Venus, Orion, that one over there is probably Deneb, and the waning gibbous moon... Yue’s long gone, likely saving orphans in some natural disaster-torn area of the world by now, but he has to admit that she’d kind of rubbed off on him.

He squints, trying to make out a dimmer cluster of stars. It’s too bright here. He needs to go out into the desert.

Stars don’t care whether you’re trans or not. In a few billion years the sun will die and destroy whatever’s left of the earth regardless of how many organisms who lived on it ever questioned their connection to this quintessentially human concept called gender. It’s kind of morbid, but Sokka takes a certain comfort in that. It’s _real._

Sokka’s pleasantly distracted from the impending bout of homesickness by the arrival of Li’s uncle the next day, who’s come to pick Li up for the weekend. Sokka actually starts up a conversation with the guy while Li awkwardly gathers up bags. He seems like a pretty cool old dude. He would have talked to him longer if Li didn’t look ready to expire of embarrassment.

“I’ll see you in a few days,” says Li awkwardly, lingering at the door after shooing Uncle Iroh out. 

“Yep. See you,” says Sokka, too cheerfully.

Li frowns at him and opens her mouth, but seems unsure of quite what to say. Eventually Li settles on, “Have a good weekend.”

“You too,” says Sokka, and smiles until Li finally closes the door.

Sokka listens to the suite door open and close, takes a few seconds to let the complete silence settle over him like a fine layer of dust, and then flops onto his bed. 

The campus is emptying, but he’ll be staying here. Just as he will nearly every weekend this year. 

He’s lying there, listening to the wind from the open window making the cheap plastic blinds clack together and contemplating whether to poke around and find Teo or Suki, if they’re still on campus that is, when his family video call him, and the decision of what to do is taken out of his hands.

It’s a jolt seeing their faces again. Not like he’d forgotten what they looked like, but that it’s-- weird, to be looking at his family as if he’s on the outside. It’s unsettling. 

“One thing has changed since you left, Sokka,” says his father in that terrible tone parents use when they know something will embarrass their children but are _totally_ going to say it anyway. He raises his eyebrows. “Katara got a girlfriend.”

“Dad!” Katara complains, but she’s laughing even as she self-consciously tucks her hair behind her ear.

“A girlfriend? All right, who do I need to threaten?” says Sokka, crossing his arms.

“We’ve only been on two dates so far.”

“And you haven’t stopped talking about her since,” says Gran-Gran knowingly from off screen.

Sokka squints at Katara in mock suspicion, and she giggles. 

“It’s just this girl I know from school. It’s not like it’s serious right now,” says Katara, but indeed she can’t stop grinning. 

“Well, you tell her from me that she’ll have me to deal with if she breaks your heart, and being a thousand miles away isn’t going to stop me either.” He falters a little at his own words. He knows that to be the distance, but...god. It’s different when spoken aloud, when he’s looking at the physical proof of those thousand miles in front of him. How can he forget when every so often his family’s faces jump or lag? 

“And I mean it!” He frowns. “Do I know this girl? Is it...Rachel Whatsername? Because I’m warning you, she always gave me a weird vibe--”

Katara rolls her eyes, but she seems slightly relieved. “I see you’re still your same obnoxious self. What about you?”

“What?”

“There must be lots of people for you to date there. Do you have anyone you’re dating?”

“No, I don’t.” 

“Hmm, is that so?” says Katara, a glint in her eye. Ah, see. This is his payback for getting nosy about Raquelle Whatserface. “I seem to remember you describing yourself as an ‘irresistible charmer.’”

“I’ve been busy!” says Sokka. The nerve of her, questioning his charm-- he is _very_ capable of attracting people, thank you very much. He’s just...

“But really,” says Katara earnestly. “Sokka. It’s, like-- a nice place for lesbians, for LGBT people, isn’t it? And people are okay? I mean, I’m about to submit my college applications, and I don’t know for sure if I’ll get in there, but I want to make sure.” The clinking and water running sounds of Hakoda washing dishes come through in the background. Sokka knows for a fact that it is patently ridiculous to suggest Katara wouldn’t get in here; if anything, she’s out of this place’s league. 

Sokka has no idea what the community is like. Which is _not_ because he’s too cowardly to come out again, he’d come out about his sexuality in front of the entire world without batting an eyelash, it’s just that the whole realizing-you’re-trans thing has tripped him up a little. Sue him. “Yeah, it’s nice, Katara.”

She relaxes, smiling, and he tries not to think about how ridiculous this is, that he knows they’d take it well but for some reason he still just _can’t._

 

“I don’t believe it,” says Sokka. 

Li looks up with wide eyes, cutting the music off.

“ABBA? I never would have expected that from you,” says Sokka, sitting on top of his desk and pulling out his phone, still grinning at Li.

Li frowns a little. “What would you have expected?”

“You know, emo stuff. Angsty stuff from the early 2000s. You’re telling me you didn’t cry when MCR broke up?” Sokka’s teasing. This is _great_ news, this revelation is going to be amusing for at least a month.

“I wasn’t the kind of guy who ever had the lip ring and emo bangs, if that’s what you mean,” says Li, slightly flustered.

Sokka looks up from his phone. Did Li just say… “You mean ‘girl’? ‘Person’?”

Li frowns. “What?”

“You said--” Sokka lowers the phone. Probably not. Just his mind playing tricks on him, projecting. He is _losing it._ “I thought you said you weren’t the kind of guy... Never mind.”

Li goes unnaturally still, staring at him with round eyes. “Y-Yeah,” says Li after a second. “That’s what I meant.” 

Sokka nods slowly and looks back at his phone, but when he glances up a minute later, it’s to see Li looking much paler than usual and not having moved much.

“I’m going out,” says Li abruptly. 

Sokka tilts his head. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” says Li. Li is clearly not fine. 

“Okay,” says Sokka slowly, watching as Li tugs on a pair of shoes and exits posthaste. He watches the door for a few seconds after it’s closed. 

Huh. That was-- odd.

Come to think of it, Li does have quite a lot of masculine-appearing clothing. And seemed vaguely nauseated by the suggestion of joining a sorority. Those could both be for other reasons.

But. Taken together. Maybe... 

 

“What is this?” 

Heart pounding, Sokka looks down, knowing what he’s going to see: it’s his laptop, showing the front page of a trans guy-centered blog. Obviously. He put it right on his desk in the most easily viewable position. He would have been concerned about Li’s vision if he didn’t see it.

He shrugs, going for nonchalance. Here we go. “What does it look like?”

He looks up, expecting to see surprise and understanding, but instead Li’s glaring as if trying to bore a hole through his skull, and Sokka blinks, stepping back a little. Maybe he, uh. Holy shit. Maybe Li really _did_ just have a slip of the tongue that time, and Sokka has made a fatal miscalculation. He’s close to the door, but he’d have to turn around, and he really doesn’t have much of a height advantage… 

Li grips the laptop tighter, fingers going white, and spits, “What is it you want, then? Blackmail? Or do you just want to taunt me?”

Sokka stares, utterly confounded. What the...Why would he want...What the hell is Li…? And then it hits him, and he feels dizzy with relief. “Wait, hold on-- you think I’m making fun of you?” he blurts incredulously.

Li’s jaw clenches. “You don’t have to spell it out. It’s clear.”

_Oh my god._ “Li--” Wait, hold on-- is that even his real name? “--I-- I mean-- I was trying to come out to you! In a chill, relatable way where we wouldn’t have to have some big dramatic, angsty conversation-- yeah, you know what, this was a bad idea. I’m sorry I scared you.” 

Li stares at him, frown turning to confusion. 

Sokka holds his hands out for the laptop. His hands are visibly shaky from the adrenaline and subsequent relief, but Li looks like he might actually drop it, and Sokka really doesn’t want to have to buy a new one. “Can I take this?”

It takes Li a few moments to jerkily lower it into his hands. “I…I don’t...” he says, his voice uneven, then stalls. He still hasn’t lowered his arms fully, his frame stiff, as if his fight-or-flight response hasn’t fully been deactivated. 

“Okay, here goes.” Sokka takes a deep breath, shuffling aside from the door so that Li can leave if he wants to. “I am transgender. I am a trans guy.” Holy shit, is that his heart? Because that is _really_ beating fast-- his body wasn’t made for this kind of stress so early in the day. “I was trying to come out to you because I _kind of_ was getting the vibe…” He looks at Li a little sheepishly sideways. “...that you were too?” 

At Li’s stricken expression, Sokka hastily elaborates, raising his hands, “I mean, if you’re not, or you don’t want to talk about it, we can just forget this ever happened. No pressure. Nothing has to change. But for me, I...am.”

In the silence, there’s a burst of laughter as a couple of their suitemates pass by their thin door on their way out. Sokka’s analog clock, still not hung up, ticks clearly from its place leaning against a calc textbook on his desk.

“Please say something,” says Sokka, starting to get worried again. He may actually have broken his roommate.

“Yeah. I am. I am too,” says Li croakily.

Sokka nods. “Okay. Cool. Do you uh, do you need some time alone? Should I go? Because you really don’t look so hot.”

“No, no. I’m fine.” Li shakes his head, looking a little clearer-eyed. “I just wasn’t expecting...that.”

“Me neither.” 

They both laugh a little, the tension broken. 

Sokka sticks his hand out. “How about we start over, then. Hi. I’m Sokka.”

His roommate grasps his hand, and they shake. “I’m Zuko.”


	2. Chapter 2

Here, even the dirt roads aren’t really dirt; they’re more dust. The concrete exists side by side with the tumbleweeds outpacing him by the side of the road as he sits in Thursday afternoon traffic on the bus, listening to one of the politics-focused radio stations discuss one of the frontrunners in the presidential race looming large in the coming days, the same local candidate whose platform Sokka needed only one look at before he understood that he’s the kind of guy Sokka wouldn’t trust as far as he could throw, lest he throw people like Sokka under a bus. Apparently, just today, the guy newly surged ahead in the polls.

He clatters into their dorm room, hoping the dust won’t get caked into the shitty carpet and thinking it’s empty, but no-- there’s Zuko, apparently with the covers over his head on the top bunk. Which is super weird. Sokka’s never seen him sleep while the sun is out. Like, ever. 

He pokes the mound of blankets gently; it grunts. “You finally trying to catch up on your mountain of sleep debt?”

A hand emerges from the cocoon, swatting at Sokka’s hand. “I _was._ I... Sleep is important.”

“And here I thought it was completely useless.”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“Just making sure you’re okay, buddy. Had to make sure you weren’t going to die on me. It’s really weird to see you in bed during the day.”

A pause. “Thanks,” says Zuko quietly. 

Sokka pats what he thinks is Zuko’s shoulder and sits down at his desk. About thirty minutes into his homework Zuko announces raspily from his blanket mound, “This movie always seemed fake to me. Never liked it.”

Sokka pauses it, tugging off his headphones. “Thought you were sleeping?”

“Can’t,” says Zuko shortly, propping his head on the edge of his bunk, his hair mussed. 

“Well, don’t blame me,” says Sokka, resting his hands on his hips. “I didn’t pick it. It’s for class. And I wouldn’t know, because I can’t understand half of what they’re saying, not even their names. I’ve just been calling them Janks Tweezly and Ann Stillwater.”

Zuko snorts, and his mouth quirks as if he’s trying to hide a smile. “Pretty sure their names are--”

“No, Zuko, no. Don’t ruin this for me.”

Zuko does laugh a little at that, and Sokka grins at him, feeling warmth blooming in his chest. 

“Why, you gonna recommend me something better?”

_Why did I say that, that was a weird thing to say, it came out sounding all wrong, almost like I was flirting, but I wasn’t, probably, and now I’ve probably made things awkward. You’re cool, you’re cool--_

But Zuko’s expression is brightening, and _ah-hah--_ Sokka may just have hit on one of the things that Zuko likes. 

In any case, Sokka would rather be watching this movie about lesbian cheerleaders with Zuko (whether one of the actors is unsettlingly familiar or not) than writing his theater essay, and by the end of it he does seem in a slightly better mood, so Sokka counts it as a win.

 

Sokka’s trying very hard not to think about things other than his classes. His success in this area is limited, due to a delightful combo of things, the least of which is that his required writing classes are pretty much the most boring courses ever invented. The chief culprits include that ever-present dysphoric mind-fog and that it’s a strange sensation for life to be going so fast, so smoothly so far away from everything he’s ever known.

One moment he was fine; the next, he was standing in a stairwell with a series of aching pains in his chest and burning behind his eyes over just having realized that the ever present squeaking of wet shoes on linoleum he remembers from high school in the winter is absent from his classrooms here. Apparently, there’s nothing like P.E. class and cafeteria food to make a man feel weepy with longing-- but it does remind him of winter, and Sokka misses that.

Probably that familiar chill is there in the air back home, the kind that strips the leaves from the trees and makes metal handles on doors of public spaces a bitch to touch. There are lots of things he’ll be missing this season-- throwing an ice cube in the toilet to bring luck that it’ll be a snow day, the irritating shock of snow when it gets into the gap between your glove and your sleeve...Pretty soon, sometime in the next month maybe, everyone will be eagerly looking out for the first snowfall, breaking out their scarves and hats. There’ll be no need for that here; here, he’s realizing that what passes for fall and winter is actually something like being eternally stuck somewhere around mid spring, as if always on the cusp of change but never quite getting there. As if just dragging on miserably unvarying for ages.

Funny, he could say the same for himself. 

And his old friend dysphoria is back. Great.

Once he feels he can reasonably pass for a halfway emotionally stable person, he rubs his eyes and goes back to his dorm, because where the hell else is he going to go? Getting weepy in front of Zuko is not an ideal situation, but it’s certainly better than getting weepy in front of poor random strangers who were just too impatient to wait for the elevator. And as for public bathrooms, he’s not too good with those, funnily enough.

Zuko looks up when Sokka opens the door, and for a second they just stare at each other, Sokka’s eyes red-rimmed and puffy and Zuko’s good eye with a dark bag beneath it. As one they jerk their gazes away, and Sokka closes the door, crosses to his bed, and collapses on it, curling up to face the wall, only kicking off his shoes as an afterthought. Sokka can hear Zuko shuffling papers around, turning on the desk light, but when he rolls over to glance at him, Zuko’s just staring down at the desk, his fingers splayed over his upside down notes, unmoving.

Sokka rolls back over.

A minute later, he hears the chair squeak as Zuko stands up. He walks over to stand by the bed, hovering awkwardly. 

“Sokka,” he says uncertainly. “Are you...okay?”

“Nope,” says Sokka, popping the “p.”

“Oh.” Zuko shuffles his feet. “Do you wanna...talk about it? Do you need anything?”

Sokka considers this for a moment. “You ever get homesick?”

Zuko pauses. “Sometimes,” he says eventually. 

“Well, I’m homesick. Kind of ridiculous, I guess. But there you go.”

“I don’t think it’s ridiculous.”

“Thanks, man.”

Zuko’s quiet for a minute, still standing awkwardly by the bed. 

“Zuko, you can sit down if you want.”

The bedsprings squeak a little with the added weight. Sokka focuses on his breathing, staring at the whitewashed brick wall and trying not to feel too despondent. Why didn’t anyone tell him that college was going to be this depressing? He could have used that information.

“Do you want to…” Zuko shuffles around a little as if feeling nervous. “...watch a movie?”

This is how they end up both crammed onto Sokka’s bed, watching yet another movie: _The Rocky Horror Picture Show,_ which Zuko seems personally offended that Sokka has never seen. 

“I’ve seen it with the shadow cast,” says Zuko, his chin propped in his hand. “Never the stage show, though.”

In any other circumstance it might be hard to tear his attention away from mostly naked Susan Sarandon, but Sokka finds himself intensely interested. Zuko honestly doesn’t volunteer information about himself that often. “Yeah?”

Zuko nods, the screen lighting up his face in the darkness strangely. He frowns, and then a few moments later says hesitantly, “When I was a kid, my mom, she used to be really into theater. She’s, um...not around anymore, but...I guess that’s why I like this stuff.”

“My mom used to be really into crochet,” says Sokka, wanting to contribute something back to this thing they apparently share, like a potluck of mutual mommy issues. He clears his throat. “She’s not around anymore either.”

Zuko half smiles humorlessly, picking at a thread on his sleeve. 

The next morning Sokka spots a flash of bright red among the blue of his blankets. He fishes it out, only to realize that it’s one of Zuko’s socks. What kind of asshole wears red socks? Zuko does, apparently.

He considers whether he should be annoyed about this. But somehow Zuko’s _clothes_ ending up in his bed because Zuko was _there_ is different than him absentmindedly piling his Introduction to International Relations textbooks right in the exact spot Sokka likes to sit while relaxing. 

And anyway, maybe Sokka doesn’t mind Zuko’s messy habits as much as he likes to pretend he does. It makes the room feel lived in, theirs, in a way. It reminds him that he’s not alone even when Zuko isn’t there-- Zuko’s college sweatshirt hanging down from his bunk, or a page of his notes written with one of Sokka’s pens. It’s not the sterile, distant friendliness he’d expected from a college roommate, and Sokka, having grown up in a closely knit family and community, appreciates this.

 

“You should come to the party with me,” says Sokka wheedlingly, reluctantly stowing the glittery blue eyeshadow back away without putting it on. Looks nice, but will make him feel worse. 

Zuko crosses his arms. “I’m not really a party kind of person.”

“There’s lots of nice people I know who are going.”

Zuko’s frown flickers, his expression leaning towards unsure. “I don’t think I--” He stops. “I’m not great with people. Or parties.”

“I won’t abandon you or anything.” 

“I know,” says Zuko. “You go.” 

But his voice is so surprised that Sokka seriously considers just blowing off this party and sticking around with him. Because man, if Zuko’s not convinced yet that they are Actually FriendsTM, there are a couple things they’re going to need to do together. Sokka’s pretty sure he remembers how to braid friendship bracelets...

But Zuko’s expression is set, and he’s surrounded himself in a mountain of homework in a way that says quite plainly what his plans for the evening are, and well, Sokka can’t force him if he doesn’t want to. So he goes alone.

“Hey.”

Sokka turns to face the voice, only to be met with probably the hottest person he’s seen at this party so far, a tall guy with curly dark hair. Which is not the _only_ reason he came-- but it is _a_ reason, because, well, he’s eighteen and bisexual and hey, what else would you do in a building full of a bunch of your very attractive peers freshly freed from parental supervision?

“Hey,” Sokka shouts back over the music, leaning back as confidently as he can against the wall he’s standing next to. This is a masculine lean, right? Fuck it, it is now.

“Would it be cool if I got your number?” says Curly Hair Guy at one point. Sokka’s holding one of those red Solo cups you see in the movies, and he thought they might have been a myth, but nope. Real. “Honestly, don’t want to freak you out or anything, but you’re the only girl I’ve felt drawn to all night, and I’d really like to get to know you better.”

Sokka chokes on the contents of the Solo cup. When he’s no longer in danger of coughing up one of his lungs and his thoughts have resolved into something more than a string of distressed exclamation points, he rasps, “Whoa, dude. Ordinarily it’d be totally cool, but I…” Sokka’s shoulders tense. He craves the sweet release of death. “...I’m not really the kind of person you want to be getting involved with. I-It’s uh...complicated.” Way to keep it lighthearted, genius.

Curly Hair Guy frowns, looking a little disappointed. “Oh. Are you like-- sort of involved with someone, but it’s complicated? ‘Cause I get that. I’ve been in that situation before. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah,” says Sokka, seizing on the explanation gratefully, “yeah, that’s it-- sorry.”

He spends the rest of the party trying to drink enough to forget the whole exchange. 

 

It’s a pretty normal day. There is a feeling of tenseness in the air, but for the most part he goes into the polling place and is back to trying to puzzle through calculus soon after. He keeps an eye on things, of course-- the internet is great that way-- but it’s not until he’s sitting in his dorm room that night, alone and staring at the screen as it confirms the very result he dreaded most, that he realizes how wrong he was about thinking it would all be fine. 

He’s holding a spoon loaded with microwavable macaroni and cheese at the time, wearing slippers, watching the video feed as it streams live. Five minutes later, and he can _hear_ the protesters approaching outside, even five stories up. Politicians’ promises rarely come true, but if this one follows through, they might be invading one of their neighbors tomorrow. 

Zuko doesn’t show up until five the next morning. He comes in quietly, but Sokka has been lying awake, and he sits up.

Zuko stops in the midst of taking off his shoes, his expression hidden by the darkness.

“Hey,” says Sokka, for want of anything else to say.

“H-” Zuko clears his throat, straightening up. “Hey.”

“So.” Sokka casts around for something to say. “I’m sure you heard.”

Zuko is silent for a few moments. “Yeah.”

“This fucking sucks,” says Sokka bluntly, too tired to come up with any response that’s less like complaining and more constructive. 

Zuko finishes with his shoes and slumps against the door, sliding down to sit on the ground, his gaze angled downwards as far as Sokka can see. “Yeah,” he says. 

 

There’s a light under the door. Zuko is back from another weekend with his uncle. Sokka opens the door, a smile already forming, because the room always feels emptier in more than a physical way when he’s not here, and at least for now the only time he doesn’t have to pretend is when he’s with Zuko, because Zuko--

Zuko. _Holy shit._

“You lost the ponytail!” says Sokka.

“Yeah, I did,” says Zuko, looking triumphant in his buzzcut. He says it with the kind of vindictive satisfaction that can only be earned through gloriously vanquishing a lifelong foe.

“You look good!”

Zuko turns red, ducking his head. “Thanks.”

“Huh.” Sokka crosses his arms. “Finally something good happens.”

 

The Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, pits of human burials wearing warrior garb. And look, it’s not that maxilla necklaces aren’t lit and all, but the paragraph has a couple sentences about female skeletons found in the pits, women from thousands of years ago.

He turns the page. Forget the sun turning into a red giant, it would only take a couple thousand years for every trace of who he was to be completely obliterated. If he died today and they dug up his skeleton, they’d never know… The wrongness literally goes right down to his bones, and even if he lived a thousand years he’d never get close to new ones.

Although, given the way things are progressing, he’s starting to wonder if there will be much of the world to dig up in a thousand years. And boy, he thought he was paranoid _before._ He was so sure, so sure this wouldn’t happen, that things were changing for the better-- but every person he passes on the street, he has to wonder, is this a person who decided that he and his family were expendable? 

What motivation could they possibly have had? 

“I don’t know how to get people to understand that what they’re doing is wrong,” says Zuko quietly, so quietly that Sokka almost doesn’t hear him over the chatter in the dining hall. “I think they’re...afraid.”

“Afraid of people like us,” says Sokka, justifiably salty, stabbing his fork into his pasta. He frowns. “Afraid of people like our families.”

Zuko’s frame jerks a little as if he’s just been jolted by a static shock, but he says nothing. 

And yeah, maybe it’s naive, or self-centered, to take it so personally-- to think every person who made that choice had it out for _him._

But Sokka’s only human, and this guy, this locally grown billionaire with his meteoric rise to the highest office in the country, appears to have him and the people he cares about in the crosshairs. 

And, well, Sokka’s just not down with that. 

 

A week later, Sokka flies home. It’s winter. He’s relieved to see the familiar trappings of the season as Katara drives him home from the airport, chattering excitedly all the way-- salted roads, puffy jackets-- for some reason Zuko pops into his mind. Has Zuko ever seen snow?

He hugs his family, goes with Katara to visit Aang and Toph, and finds himself sitting on his bed at the end of the day, alone in his old room. He can hear the TV distantly from downstairs. 

He bounces on the bed experimentally. Still the same as he remembers. His old blanket is still here, even if most of his stuff is gone. 

Speaking of stuff...

“Happy birthday, Katara,” he quips as he dumps all the clothes he could find-- all of the very feminine-looking clothes-- on her bed. Hey, she should be grateful. A couple of the blouses, in particular, were downright expensive.

She looks at him as if he’s grown a second head. “What are you doing?”

“These are things I’m never going to wear again,” says Sokka with glee. “So here you go. You’re welcome.”

And he walks out in the highest of spirits, as Katara calls after him in outrage, “Just because I’m the youngest doesn’t mean I want all your hand-me-downs!”

He flops onto the couch and pulls out his phone. He kind of wants to complain about something and his family learned to tune him out long ago, but more than that he just wants to talk to Zuko.

_9:16 PM  
Appa knocked a can of pop all over my wallet and let me tell you he is lucky he’s cute_

He stares at the screen. Zuko may well have lost his phone-- which is not an uncommon occurrence due to the usual state of his belongings-- or he may just not be checking it. Which he also does. Well, Sokka can wait.

He’s lying in the dark, staring up at the ceiling and trying to get to sleep, when he hears his phone chime. He scoops it up, squinting at the suddenly bright screen.

_2:03 AM_  
_Who’s Appa??_  
_And wtf is pop???_

__

_2:04 AM_  
_Aang’s dog. Aang is mine and Katara’s friend. He’s like fifteen_  
_And you know. Pop. Fizzy carbonated stuff_  
_Why are you awake_

_2:05 AM_  
_Why are you_  
_Theres no way you’ve lived on the west coast for months and don’t know the word soda_

_2:05 AM_  
_Touche_  
_You call pillbugs roly-polies I don’t trust your dialect_  
_Go to sleep, Zuko_


	3. Chapter 3

He tries not to think about it. This election is over and done-- what could he possibly do?

But the fact is that no amount of camp cult fiction will stop this from being real, no number of visits to his campus’s LGBT resource center will cure this anxiety, and no volume of literature on queer temporality will exempt him from the steamroll of the daily news cycle and the horrible dread he has about what this winter will bring. 

In Katara’s calls she always speaks of organizing, that she and Aang and Toph are going to do this and that and that they will surely turn things around for the better. 

“Katara,” he says in exasperation. “Just be careful...you’re just one small person. I don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

Katara’s expression hardens over the video call, and Sokka realizes that he should not have said that.

“Sylvia Rivera was one small person too,” she says. “And so were Harvey Milk, and Bayard Rustin, and Brenda Howard--” 

“Okay, okay, I get it,” says Sokka hurriedly.

“If you think our gay asses are going to just sit down and be quiet you’ve got another thing coming,” comes Toph’s voice fairly clearly.

“I never told you to just sit down and be quiet--”

“Sokka, what do you think we should do, then?” pipes up Aang, his curious expression appearing in the frame. 

“I think you should _think_ before you do something that exposes you to-- our county was one of the only ones in the state that didn’t mostly vote for--” 

“That motherfucker?” says Toph casually. 

“Yes!”

“We will be careful,” Aang attempts to reassure him, holding his hands out placatingly, before Katara overrides him with, “Sokka, I don’t _care_ about being careful, I want to get things done!”

Sokka groans, rubbing his face and nearly at the point of tearing his own hair out. How is he supposed to protect his sister if she won’t _listen_ to him?

Katara is hopeful about how things might improve. Sokka is not. 

And judging by Zuko’s increasingly ghostly countenance, the bag under his good eye and the way he just walks out in the evenings sometimes and doesn’t come back until the next morning, Sokka’s guessing he isn’t either. 

“What are you doing?” says Zuko.

“I’m coming with you,” says Sokka breezily, pushing his arm through his jacket sleeve.

“I’m just walking,” says Zuko, looking baffled. 

“I know,” says Sokka. “I could use some fresh air.” Really it’s that he’s tired of watching Zuko come back looking even more worn out and emo than he usually does, and he figures it’s high time he put a stop to it as much as can be arranged.

They walk in silence for the first few minutes. The dusk air is oddly quieting, and Sokka’s briefly distracted by the pleasant breeze, the twinkling of the first few stars. He nudges Zuko’s shoulder gently. Zuko looks up.

“Orion,” says Sokka, pointing above them.

Zuko looks, tilting his head curiously. “It’s beautiful,” he says.

“Yeah.” There’s a line here, about what else is beautiful, but Sokka is not going to say it. “So what’s eating you?”

Zuko chews on his lip for a minute in silence as they meander through a path lined with lecture halls and research buildings. “You talk to your sister a lot,” he says eventually.

Whatever Sokka was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. “Uh. Yeah. I guess I do.”

“You guys are close.”

“Yeah.”

“This is such a cliché,” says Zuko. “It’s…” He trails off briefly. “My sister...we’re not on good terms.”

“I didn’t know you even had a sister.”

Zuko shrugs, his face falling into shadow as they cross under a tree. “I realized that I was-- trans-- when I was like nine. For years after that, I tried to pretend that I wasn’t. I thought, maybe if I buried it deep, deep down, tried my hardest to be the perfect daughter, the way my sister always was-- maybe…” He shakes his head. They pass a fountain, and Sokka struggles to hear his low voice over the water. 

This hit Sokka like a semi truck on a deserted sidewalk. You grow up, and you care about things like whether your bag matches your belt and get crushes on male professional athletes, and okay, maybe you’re a little too paranoid and a little too ready to use sarcasm as a defense mechanism even to yourself, so why the hell would he ever have suspected? Sokka tries to imagine what it would have been like to grow up knowing. Maybe he wouldn’t have overcompensated so much, maybe he would never have gone through that phase of insecure boorishness...

“...But I realized eventually that I will never pass for a perfect daughter,” Zuko continues, his mouth twisting. “Or even an imperfect daughter. My sister was absolutely delighted.”

“Sounds like you’re better off without her,” says Sokka firmly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Hey! You can meet my sister. I bet you guys’ll like each other instantly.”

Zuko gives him a dubious, amused look. 

“Yep. I can already see it. You’ll be best friends within five minutes,” says Sokka. 

 

Zuko’s face is tense as he stuffs his notebook into his backpack. Sokka watches him from the desk, eating cereal out of a mug. 

“I don’t know why you want to watch,” says Zuko, avoiding Sokka’s eyes.

“It’s history being made,” says Sokka grimly. “Besides, you gotta know what the enemy’s doing.”

He watches Zuko pull on his shoes, slipping up a few times. His fingers don’t seem to want to cooperate. 

Sokka pauses the live feed. “You sure you don’t want to watch? When you come back, we’ll have a new-- well. It’ll be different.”

“I have to get to class,” says Zuko roughly. 

Sokka knows for a fact that Zuko’s earliest class today doesn’t start until noon, but he says nothing.

Zuko hasn’t come back since this morning, or answered to any calls or texts, and Sokka thinks it’s high time he checked up on him, wherever the hell he is. He finds him in the library at half past eight, in the quiet wing, tucked into a deserted corner with his head pillowed on his arms.

He jumps when Sokka touches his shoulder, jerking his head up, his eyes wide. Sokka makes a calming motion, and Zuko frowns at him vaguely. 

“Are you okay?” Sokka whispers.

Zuko snorts, putting his face back against his arms, which Sokka supposes is answer enough. “Is _anyone_ okay today?” he eventually says, muffled. 

 

Zuko, apparently, doesn’t have a plan to come out, not according to when Sokka idly questioned him about it one night. Sokka, however, does have a plan, and that plan is to do it gradually, while pretending very hard that nothing’s happening, so that when he finally does tell people about it it’ll be an easy transition, and they’ll say “Oh, of course, I already guessed,” and “This doesn’t change the way I feel about you at all” and “I saw this coming from a mile away,” etc. etc. And this is Phase One.

And that means that he’s going to buy a measuring tape-- for less than a dollar, who knew they were so cheap?-- and struggle his way through...well, measuring. To, you know. Buy the thing. He’d really rather not think about it too much. It’s exciting, but this part especially gives him anxiety.

Which is why he jumps about a foot in the air when Zuko opens the door. 

“Oh.” Zuko blinks and immediately makes to turn around. 

“It’s fine,” says Sokka impatiently, trying to ignore the heat in his face, “just _close the door.”_

Zuko walks into the room, eyes carefully averted-- great, now they’re both blushing-- and sits down at his desk. “You know, I can leave for a minute if you, uh-- want privacy…” he says, even more awkwardly than usual.

“I don’t care,” says Sokka as nonchalantly as he can. “I’m not gonna kick you out this late.” He fumbles the tape. He doesn’t want to do this, at all. This would go faster if the damn thing would just-- stop-- _slipping--_

Sokka huffs out a frustrated sigh, dropping the tape and rubbing his eyes. This is _so uncomfortable_ on _so many levels,_ the way the tape cinches around him only makes him more self-conscious, he’s probably doing it wrong, and the nature of the activity forces him to confront his body in a way he genuinely prefers not to, at all, pretty much ever. Forget coming out, he’s toast if he can’t even summon up the will to measure himself for a binder. 

“Sokka,” says Zuko abruptly, and then just as quickly adds, “never mind.”

“No, what were you gonna say?”

“I was going to ask you if you...wanted some help. Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed--”

“No, no, actually, I _really_ would. This is a nightmare.” He just wants the whole thing _over with,_ and hey, Zuko offered. 

The chair creaks as Zuko rises, shyly hovering next to Sokka. He takes the proffered tape and rolls it back out. “Where first?” 

Sokka tries to relax, lowering his shoulders. He focuses first on the wall over Zuko’s shoulder, and then sneaks glances at Zuko, at the determined set of his mouth, his slight frown of concentration. There’s a small, stubborn lock of his dark hair sticking up weirdly on the left side of his head, the buzzcut growing out. 

This isn’t weird, and Zuko offered, it’s just friends helping each other out-- but despite Sokka’s discomfort about having to do these measurements, they are awfully close. Every time Zuko’s careful hands skim over his sides they leave a trail of warmth, and every time he leans in to loop the tape around his back he can smell his shampoo, and-- you know what, actually this was a terrible idea. Yeah. Clearly just the worst. 

Okay, so his roommate is attractive. Sokka’s not so cowardly that he can’t admit that he’s _attracted_ to his roommate. But, it’s highly unlikely that it will go any further than that, which is probably how it should stay, with them being roommates and all.

Zuko steps around him to measure his shoulders and he shivers a little at the feeling of Zuko’s breath lightly on his neck. If he had to get anyone’s help in this, he’s glad it’s Zuko, who gets it; he’s working fast and efficiently, and Sokka’s grateful for it.

All he’s gotta do is not get a crush on the guy.

Should be easy. 

Just kidding, he’s already lost and he knows it. 

 

There is some itch of foreboding he can’t seem to shake. What’s bothering him has its roots in the petty, small things. Like the morning news-- the torrent of information is numbing, and worrying, and Sokka is still reeling. Like their suitemates-- he was never exactly _close_ with any of them but they’re starting to smile at him strangely, and Zuko too, and he’s not sure if they think they’re lesbians and fucking or if they’ve figured him out or if they’re just uncomfortable with how suspiciously masculine the two of them are starting to look. 

And, admittedly, like the fact that Zuko let him borrow a couple sweaters and jackets and Sokka still hasn’t given them back-- because, because, well. Not because of his crush, obviously. It’s just that-- well, if Zuko’s going to leave his clothes lying all around their room-- this is what he gets for being raised rich, he probably had a fucking _butler_ growing up or something, the jerk-- then isn’t it better if Sokka’s actually taking care of them, putting them away? 

And if he finds the way they smell comforting, then that’s his business and no one else’s.

 

“I think this was the wrong stop,” says Zuko.

“No,” says Sokka, wiping the drizzly dampness off his face with his sleeve, “really?”

“No, of course not, I just said that for the hell of it, I think this was the _best_ place we could _possibly_ have gotten off.”

“It’s no fun having a sarcasm battle in the rain,” says Sokka. The raindrops beaded on Zuko’s jacket look like tiny jewels. 

Zuko sighs, hunching over on the bus stop chair. They’re huddled under the overhang. “It’s no fun doing _anything_ in the rain.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes. The next bus is late.

“Are you cold?”

Sokka looks up. “Hmm?”

“You’re shivering.”

“Yeah,” says Sokka with a sigh, noticing his physical discomfort for the first time. “Now that you mention it, I am.” He gropes for the sides of his jacket, but-- damn. This is that one without the pockets.

“Here,” says Zuko a little shyly, holding his hands out. “I’ve been told I run too warm.”

Sokka looks at his hands, pale and slender-fingered and wavering just slightly, for a few seconds before he gets it. He thinks about teasing him, but finds that he can’t-- something about this feels honest, genuine. So instead he places his hands in Zuko’s, his palms together. Zuko sandwiches them between his own. He wasn’t joking. His hands are warm. 

For an undetermined length of time they just sit there as Sokka’s fingers slowly regain feeling, their knees brushing. There’s a small pile of soggy leaves slippery under Sokka’s left shoe.

“But,” says Sokka eventually, unable to resist, “can you warm my _nose,_ though?”

Their brief tussle nearly gets them drenched by the rain again, but by the end of it they’re both laughing, and Sokka nearly can’t imagine feeling cold ever again.


	4. Chapter 4

“I got in!” Katara waves the letter at him, Sokka’s view of the kitchen behind her briefly impeded by white paper and typed letters so close up they’re blurry.

_“What_ a surprise,” says Sokka, “I had no idea my genius sister would get accepted to college.” He’s proud, though, he really is.

Katara briefly gives him a disapproving look, but it’s only a couple of seconds before the smile is back on her face. She tells him excitedly about all her plans for the next few years, pre-med and politics and wanting to start a fucking _revolution,_ about Aang, Toph, and their family, all the while being absolutely clueless that he is on an entirely different path than the one they used to think they shared.

Because this is nothing he ever planned for, right? One half of him is dragging the other half forwards kicking and screaming, he is not, in fact, the girl who likes girls that both of them assumed he was, and _man,_ is it ever fucking depressing, and messy. 

God, this is getting sad. Time to distract himself. 

“So,” he says, once he’s tuned back in and determined an appropriate time in the conversation to return to his brotherly duties of gently harassing his sister, “what’s up with your _girlfriend?_ What’s her name, Susan?”

“Her name is Song, which I know you know,” says Katara indignantly, but she looks down briefly, smiling. “And everything is going great, thank you. We’ve just had our five-month anniversary--” 

“Awwww, Ka _ta_ ra--” says Sokka, entirely genuinely, and Katara looks embarrassed. “Just as long as you two don’t get all smoochy-smoochy at home when I’m there.”

The embarrassment vanishes from Katara’s face, and she rolls her eyes. “Like you could stop thinking about whoever it is _you’re_ getting ‘all smoochy-smoochy’ with long enough to notice.”

“That would be no one, little sis,” says Sokka. 

“Uh-huh,” says Katara, crossing her arms as if she knows better. 

 

It’s just One of Those Days, and Sokka makes the mistake of voicing a few of his more self-destructive convictions aloud, at which Zuko adopts an expression that plainly says _You are WRONG and I will prove it by angrily supporting you._

“That’s not true,” says Zuko, defensive as if he feels personally offended. “It’s not forever, Sokka. It’ll change. You’ll get there. And your body is...good.”

Sokka cracks a teasing smile despite himself. “‘Good,’ huh?”

Zuko groans, his face turning pink. “You know what I mean. You’re...I know how you feel, that it sucks. But you….” He falls silent for a few seconds as he visibly struggles to find the words. “I know you feel wrong. I get it. But you’re not wrong, in that-- who you _are_ isn’t wrong… You’re...real, whatever stage you’re at, and. Um. You look. Good.” He finds Sokka’s eyes, pretty bravely Sokka thinks considering that his face is approaching the color of a radish, and Sokka feels a physical pang in his chest at the stubborn honesty he sees there.

“You really think that,” says Sokka. This guy.

“Yes. You don’t believe me?” says Zuko.

“I just feel like a mistake,” says Sokka eventually. How do you deal with the last, worst straw in a lifetime of secretly feared worthlessness? How do you deal with suddenly being smacked in the face with something that will never let you get past second-best, to yourself or anyone else?

And _of course_ after all this fear that he’s the one who’s just average, just normal, he’d now give almost anything to be just like all the other boys. Of course.

“You’re not a mistake,” says Zuko. He sounds angry, his arms folded. “You’re _not_ a mistake, and I’m not a mistake, and-- none of us are mistakes. People are just dicks.”

 

“I can’t believe you’re one of Those Heathens,” says Sokka. “I don’t know if our friendship can survive this.”

Zuko looks mulish. “It’s not even that weird.”

“It’s an abomination.”

“People with tastebuds like yours will be too weak to survive the apocalypse.”

“People with tastebuds like yours will probably _start_ the apocalypse. What other terrible secrets have you been hiding from me?”

“Actually,” says Zuko after a beat of hesitation, “there is something.” 

“Holy _shit,_ Zuko, I was _kidding._ Just how many skeletons you got in that closet of yours? I only have one, and it’s me.” He can feel the mood rapidly shifting, and Sokka wants to continue joking, but somehow he senses that this is much more serious than pineapple on pizza.

He watches Zuko in growing concern as he struggles for a minute, opening his mouth eventually with a frown, starting with “I…” He stops. Then he finally says, “...I actually kind of like _Teen Titans Go!--”_ before he’s cut off by Sokka good-naturedly trying to smother him with a pillow.

They’re both laughing, but the atmosphere is slightly strange, and Zuko is oddly stiff, his frown not quite smoothing out. And Sokka still gets the feeling that Zuko was about to say something else. 

 

Zuko drops the can that he was holding. Sokka catches it at the last second.

“Zuko, what the-- are you okay?”

But with one look at him, Sokka can tell that he’s not. His face is suddenly too pale, his eyes wide, his gaze fixated on the magazine rack behind Sokka. 

“I--” He inhales sharply, stepping away from the cart. “I’m going to-- I just have to--” He looks around wildly before he quickly turns his gaze to the door. 

“Zuko,” says Sokka, touching his elbow gently. “You’re freaking out, dude. What’s the problem?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” says Zuko, closing his eyes briefly. 

“You want to leave?”

“No, I-- I don’t--” He clearly does. “I’m fine.”

“Hey, it’s all right,” says Sokka, ignoring the line moving up in front of him. “Look, hey-- we can leave. It’s fine.”

“The groceries--”

“Fuck the groceries,” says Sokka, and this does get Zuko to really look at him, albeit oddly. Sokka may love food more than himself, _but_ Zuko is kind of his priority here. Has been a priority for a while, actually. “Let’s leave.”

They ditch the cart-- Sokka is so sorry for the worker who has to unload all that, and hopes they’ll get to it before the frozen pizzas melt, but hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do-- and leave within ten seconds. As they’re walking away, Sokka cranes his neck to get a look at the magazine rack.

It looks pretty normal at first, the standard fare of covers plastered with _What he REALLY wants in bed_ and photos of elaborate cupcake recipe ideas that no one can actually make, but he’s just about to turn away, mystified, when he spots it: 

_PRESIDENT TATSUKO’S SECRET DAUGHTER!_

Because tabloids are always shouting; why the hell are they always shouting? And underneath:

_Fed up of lies, Beverly Hills neighbor tells all  
Delinquent who ran away at age thirteen-- is she still out there?_

 

Zuko jabs the key into the lock as if shanking his nemesis. 

“Zuko,” says Sokka, once the door has closed. “Are you…”

_“Shit,”_ says Zuko eloquently. “I--” He jerkily puts a hand on the desk as if to steady himself. He looks up at Sokka, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry. I just-- there was a--” He gulps a little. 

Sokka considers the best way to go about this. He knows that Zuko grew up rich, that he’s from around here, that he’s not on good terms with his sister or his father and hasn’t lived with them for years… “Zuko,” he says, “you know that if you had, like, an evil dad who wanted to take over the world, I wouldn’t care, right? You’re still a-okay with me. Like, extremely okay.”

Zuko’s unnaturally still.

“As in, it hypothetically wouldn’t make me think less of you, like, at all. Not even a little bit.”

Then it’s as if Zuko’s face crumples, and he’s shaking. 

Sokka’s shoes scuff against the carpet as he crosses the distance between them in a single second, gently pressing against his shoulder until Zuko gets the hint and leans against him, pressing his face to his shoulder gratefully. Sokka’s arms come up around him, and they sway a little as they shuffle their feet to a more stable position.

“Nobody believes the stuff they put in tabloids,” offers Sokka after a minute. “And hey, maybe they don’t know it’s _you.”_ Not to mention Zuko doesn’t have Ozai Tatsuko’s name. Sokka wonders where “Sugita” comes from-- his mother, probably.

“They had my _fucking--_ second grade camp picture...on the _cover,_ ” mumbles Zuko, not lifting his head.

“Okay. All right. Then I guess the only thing is...We’ll just...not go to grocery stores anymore.”

Zuko starts out laughing, but somewhere along the way it turns into sobbing, and his keys fall from his limp hand and hit the dorm room carpet with a clink and a thump.

 

“Something...campy,” says Sokka to himself aloud. “What do you have that we haven’t watched?”

“I don’t have an endless supply of gay movies, Sokka,” says Zuko, and Sokka’s relieved to hear the amusement in his voice.

“...So you don’t have any suggestions?”

Zuko briefly falls asleep on his shoulder in the middle of _The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert._

The window is open, the fan is on, and someone’s hollering outside. Zuko sighs a little, his breath warmly brushing against his chest, and Sokka feels it as if that single tiny gust of wind was enough to multiply his heart into a million ridiculous, besotted pieces. 

He wants to rip himself up like a botched drawing, but at the same time, his transness can’t be the problem. Because-- Zuko. And how is he supposed to-- obviously it isn’t bad, isn’t ugly, can’t be all the things he thought it doomed him to be, because Zuko’s part of this too, and Zuko, he’s just so…

Sokka’s constructing a sculpture he hopes is convincing-- stand like this, dress like this, talk like this, move like this-- Should he imitate straight guys, should he imitate gay guys-- Does it matter? Does he even want to? 

Maybe it’s just him. He always was shit at art. Not that he would ever admit that.

Sokka’s just about fallen asleep himself when Zuko says abruptly, “I should have done more.”

Sokka looks at him in surprise. He thought Zuko was asleep. “Done more about what?”

“My father,” says Zuko tightly. “I know a lot about things he did, and maybe if I’d-- come forward and told people...Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten this far.”

“It’s in the past,” says Sokka. “We can’t really change it.” 

Zuko’s silent for a few moments. And then he says thoughtfully, “It’s not over,” as if this is the first time he is realizing it. He snuggles himself a little closer against Sokka’s side.

When Sokka says he’s not in love, which he tells himself quite often, he’s lying so blatantly that it’s not even funny.

 

“Katara,” he says in exasperation, “Katara, are you listening to me?”

“Mmhmm,” says Katara. This is the end of her exam week, no wonder she’s tired. 

“Katara, I just said I’m trans.”

She frowns, and he can see the computation starting up behind her eyes even over the brief lag.

“You know, like. Transgender. Like. I’m a guy. Like.” He casts around helplessly. “Uh…”

“Oh!” says Katara. _“Oh.”_

“Yeah,” says Sokka. “So, uh-- sorry, when I told you that I’d also heard the new Hayley Kiyoko album, I kind of-- lied. Pretty much.”

“I…” Katara’s blinking, her expression gobsmacked. “I didn’t see this coming.”

“Haha, yeah. Me neither.”

“Sokka,” Katara suddenly rushes out, “wait-- your name---”

“It’s the same.”

“Sokka, you know that I fully support you, right? If you need anything, you can absolutely come to me, and I’m absolutely by your side in everything. Don’t worry that you can’t tell me about this stuff, because I _promise_ that I’ll always be there for you, and--”

“Katara,” says Sokka, grinning, “yes, I know. Take a breath.”

Katara does so, giving him a small but genuine smile.

“Can you tell Dad and Gran-Gran for me? I know Dad’s working until late tonight, and I have a paper due tomorrow. Twenty pages. I’m dying.”

“Why don’t you just wait to tell them yourself? They’ll probably be surprised.”

“Katara, I told Gran-Gran you’re gay. You owe me.”

“Sokka, I was ten. You’re a grown man.”

“Come on,” he wheedles, “Do your brother a favor here.” It’s strange to say it out loud, but he knows in his heart that it’s right.

She puts on a show of huffing about it, but her eyes are laughing, and she agrees easily. 

 

“What the-- Zuko,” says Sokka, stopping upon entering the room. There is a sizable pile of beef jerky bags on his bed and he is baffled. Don’t get him wrong, he’s not exactly _upset,_ but he is baffled. “What is this?”

“I had too much money left on my meal plan,” says Zuko, frowning down at his drink, maneuvering his straw around to try to find the last few boba balls. “I had to use it up somehow. And I know you like that stuff.”

“You…” Sokka is at a complete loss for words. “Did you buy out the entire market? Or-- _several_ of the markets?” He watches one of the bags slip from his pillow and flop to the floor.

Zuko’s face is turning red. “It doesn’t matter.”

Jesus Christ, he did. 

Sokka’s not sure where exactly Zuko learned how to gift people things, because let’s admit it, this is a little ridiculous, but he supposes he can’t say much because what’s even kookier is that he, god help him, is actually charmed by it. 

“Okay, hypothetical question,” says Sokka. “How would you feel if I did something, like, I don’t know, kiss you right now?” 

Zuko’s eyes are owlishly wide. He sets the drink down on the desk. “U-Um.” His voice has gone up a pitch or two. 

“Just,” says Sokka, his palms sweaty and his heart bombarding the inside of his ribcage something awful, “you know, if a thing like that-- mmph!”

 

“Come home with me,” says Sokka in a rush, then blushes. “I mean-- come visit me, this summer. I’ll show you around, you can meet my family-- it’ll be great.”

Zuko’s hair is still adorably mussed, his face flushed. He smiles, but says hesitantly, “Will they want me around, though? Your family? I mean-- I don’t know if they’d like me.”

“Oh, they’d better,” says Sokka. “And they _will._ Besides, I don’t know why they’d mind-- Aang and Toph half live at our house anyway.” He hooks his ankle under Zuko’s. “Plus, it’s June. It’s Pride Month. What could go wrong? Actually, never mind. Whenever I ask that something _always_ goes wrong.” As a matter of fact, if he’s remembering correctly Zuko’s asshole dad has already declined to recognize the month (because of course he would).

“No, no, you’re right,” says Zuko, into his hair, laughter in his voice. “This is a good month. It’s the start of summer. Warm weather and beach visits and stuff like that.”

“It’s the start of mosquito season is what it is,” Sokka tells him, thrilled to be able to wind his arm around the bare strip of skin around his waist where his shirt has ridden up. 

They lapse into peaceful silence for a few minutes.

“Sokka,” says Zuko tentatively.

“Hmm?”

“If people keep digging, into my father’s past-- and they will-- they’ll probably find me at some point.”

“Mmhmm.”

“And things could get complicated. And I know that, um-- well, if we’re still, um…” He trails off awkwardly. “What is this?”

Sokka reluctantly pulls back a little to look at him. He looks nervous. “What do you want to be?”

“I’d like to date you,” says Zuko, flushing all over again. 

“Me too. Boyfriends it is then.”

Zuko laughs a little, seeming surprised. “Okay.” He clears his throat, sounding blissful despite the warning he appears to be trying to impart. “If we’re still boyfriends by then, you might get dragged into it.”

“Oh, no. I’m not gonna let either of us be the love interest who’s tragically distant due to somebody else being a dick,” says Sokka, squeezing him lightly. He briefly disentangles an arm to wave his hand dismissively. “Whatever happens, we’ll get through it together. And by the way, I relish the opportunity to go toe to toe with your dad and his ridiculous goat beard. I’ll fight him anytime, anywhere.” 

Through the window, the sunset is bright, and so are Zuko’s eyes, and damn it, it’s June. This is a good month. A hopeful month.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s been a long day, full of travel to and from the airport and introductions and Katara threatening to remove Zuko’s spine if he breaks Sokka’s heart, so obviously a nap is warranted.

When they wake up, the late afternoon sunlight is slanting in through the blinds, casting bright stripes across the bed. Sokka sighs, kicking the sheet down. He’s sweaty, but somehow it’s not uncomfortable. The fan whirs beside him. He opens his eyes blearily. “I want to cuddle you but it’s _too hot.”_

“It’s never too hot for cuddling,” Zuko mumbles without opening his eyes.

“It’s too hot,” Sokka repeats, but he groggily lifts his arm, reaching for Zuko’s hand in the space between them and resting it on top of it so that their fingers touch the mattress in between each other. “I think I’ve lost my sock.” He sits up blearily, hunting around in the sheets, which are a tangled mess, and then at the space between the bed and wall. “What is this?”

He pulls it out, a tiny radio. 

Zuko opens one eye, squinting. A ray of sunlight crosses his face, illuminating the tips of his hair, lighting up the eye it crosses strangely. 

_“Ohh._ So that’s where that went.”

Zuko makes a small sound of amusement, and Sokka pokes him. “Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. Don’t forget, I’ve lived with you for nine months. I know the only things you can consistently find are your wallet and your shoes.”

He flicks it on, fiddling with it until the static turns into something recognizable. It’s country music, a man singing something about his girl and his truck, and how his guyness means he’s incapable of relating to his girlfriend’s love of shopping or penchant for saying “I love you,” and-- you know, if Zuko keeps laughing like that, he’s probably going to strain something.

“Of course this is what it gives me,” says Sokka. “And during Pride Month too.”

He flops back down half on top of Zuko. The sunlight is making the bed too warm in certain places, and their skin is sweat-sticky with the heat, but he can’t find it in himself to move. Zuko nobly restrains his laughter long enough to clumsily press a kiss to the soft underside of his jaw, but Sokka can still feel him giggling in the short puffs of breath against his neck and the motion of his palm resting on Zuko’s belly. 

The sunlight fades into a velvety purple through the blinds, and the lights stay off, the room fading into dimness. There’s a strip of yellow under the door from the hallway. 

After dozing for a while, Sokka sits up and stretches, sighing. He looks down at Zuko, who’s lying quietly on his side, watching the mattress without really seeing it, his expression peaceful. 

“Have you ever seen fireflies?”

They shuffle outside. The backyard is a grassy lot, filled with the flowers of weeds, dandelions and small purple and white clusters. There’s uneven parts in the lawn, some more dirt than grass, and dark trees at the back of it where Sokka’s family sometimes sees deer come through. The fireflies blink in and out of existence all around them. Cupped in Zuko’s hand, the firefly looks so odd, so unremarkable so close up.

Zuko tilts his head at it, plainly fascinated, and jumps when another one lights up right next to his face.

“So what do you think?” says Sokka. “Worth the trip?”

Zuko lets the bug go, the two of them watching it light up as it flies away. He finds Sokka’s hand with his own. “Absolutely,” he says.


End file.
